ivey league academy: weeks in review!

Here's what we did the week of 3/12-3/16!

Reading:  Caleb chose a book to either read to himself or out loud as he works toward his next Pizza Hut Book-It prize.

English:  We finished Chapter 11 and had a test.  Caleb did very well!  We also did a cumulative review before moving on to the next chapter.

Spelling:  Caleb continued with his daily Word Ladders and his Spelling You See curriculum.

Math:  Caleb continued with his Horizons 2 Math workbook.

Word of the Week/Journal:  We didn't get to our word of the week so we saved it for the following week!

Anatomy:  This week we learned about muscles and muscular contractions.  Caleb picked up things of various weights and watched how his arm muscles moved!

Countries:  This week we studied China.  I heated up some chicken egg rolls and Caleb loved them!  We also tried our chopstick skills with yarn noodles.

Read-Aloud:  We finished the fifth book in the Frank Einstein series.  There is a sixth one but I think it was very recently published so the public library has it listed as "on order."  I reserved it though so as soon as they have a copy we should be first in line to check it out!

Here's what we did the week of 3/19-3/23!

Reading:  Caleb kept reading toward his Book-It prize.  He's really been enjoying the Nate the Great detective series so I've been putting those on hold at the library a couple at a time.

English:  We started a new chapter this week, which focuses on how to write a brief fictional story.  We read a couple of sample stories and learned that every fictional story has a problem that needs to be solved.  Caleb planned out his own story, including the main character, the setting, the problem/solution, and the story map (beginning/middle/end).

Spelling:  We continued with Word Ladders and Spelling You See.

Word of the Week/Journal:  This week's word was "fiasco."

Math:  We continued in his math workbook.

Anatomy:  This week we learned about the digestive system!  We learned about the teeth, the esophagus, the stomach, and the intestines.  For the demonstration, we put some saltines in a Ziploc bag, closed it, and then crushed them up (like how the teeth chew and crush the food).  Then, I poured a little soda in there, closed it again, and we worked it around with our fingers (the acid in the soda broke down the crackers into a paste, like what happens to our food in the stomach).

Countries:  This week we studied Thailand.  We read some great books from the library, including The Umbrella Queen, in which a little girl learns how to paint umbrellas like all the women in her village in Thailand.  We didn't paint umbrellas, but the boys did paint on some posterboard!  For our snack, I got "pocky sticks" from Target.  They're basically very thin cookie sticks dipped in chocolate or other flavors.  The boys liked them!

Read-Aloud:  This week we started Homer Price by Robert McCloskey, the author of Make Way for Ducklings and Blueberries for Sal.  Caleb enjoyed when we read Beverly Cleary books about Henry Huggins, so I figured he might also find the character of Homer Price entertaining.  We're both enjoying it!  I picked up the follow-up book, Centerburg Tales, from the library for when we're done with this one.